A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum Shrubs and Trees hibiscus tree struggling....

Hello!
So i was so excited when I drove by a local grocery store and their lawn center was having a 1/2 off EVERYTHING sale. So I bought myself a pretty hibiscus tree for my teeny tiny little deck/porch. The plant looked completely fine out in the parking lot ( where I have to say there was no shade and it was disgustingly hot out). I get it home and put it on my little porch ( where it gets LOTS of sun, but where all my other potted plants are fine) and i plan on repotting it ( cuz the black plastic buckets they come in aren't quite the aesthetic I'm striving for) but I need to buy potting soil and after a couple days it started looking bad- leaves yellowing, buds & leaves dropping, but it still was blooming. I couldn't see anything physically wrong with it, so I thought maybe it was just shock from moving or it was too hot ( 90+ degrees is pretty hot)
so i brought it inside. It seemed like it was doing well- most of the leaves/buds had stopped yellowing/dropping and I had tons of blooms last week. Then it started looking crappy again-yellowing leaves, ALL buds dropping, so i checked for buggies. Sure enough- SPIDER MITES!!!!! (GRRRRRRRR) : ( I always seem to have a problem with those.
So now I have brought this poor plant to my dad's house to keep it outside and spray it off.
has anyone else had this problem or ......well, any suggestions? I thought this was supposed to be a full sun plant, and I am also worried about repotting it if it is already traumatized. Should I wait?
Help : )

Hi!! Seems spidermites are infecting plants across the board this summer! Well IT has been moved soo mmuch it needs time to adjust to just one area,, the only thing you can do is wash off each leaf top and botton to get the mites off! I would go ahead and repot it and give it a doze of superthrive if you have any and set it inn [partial sun) they like to be feed too BUt wait untill it has adjusted to the the pot! I'm sure some one will come along and add to this!!
Good Luck!!!!!

Hi lilitu,

Like angelblossom said, you can wash off the mites. I had three tropical hibiscus plants last year that reached 2 to 3 feet tall and I kept them indoors in giant pots because people barely survive the Minnesota winters let alone plants. I left them outdoors over the summer and when they were brought indoors near the autumn, the leaves did yellow and fall off some. Once they got adjusted though they were just fine. And yes, I had the spider mite problem too. I used an insecticide called Garden Safe for Houseplants and it worked pretty well but you'll have to respray every so often. One very disgusting problem I wasn't expecting though.....millipedes!!!! After I brought the pots indoors over the winter, hundreds of various sized millipedes crawled out of the pot at night and roamed the floor! Thank god I have light colored laminate flooring and was able to spot them. So beware!!! - Tracy